I press my lips together. “Then I will speak to her when you tell me that I may,” I say.

* * *

I will find the courage to speak to the queen, and summon Ned home so that we can face her together, as soon as William Cecil says the time is right. Until then, I am dumb with fear of her. I dare not tell William Cecil how far we have gone without either his permission or the support of Robert Dudley. Of course, Ned was sure that both William Cecil and Robert Dudley have a pretty good guess what we are about, and anyone would wager that a handsome young man like Ned and a beautiful princess like me would fall in love if they are allowed to spend every day together. So perhaps I should speak out soon, with the hope that William Cecil will take my part.

But what if William Cecil is not inviting my confidences but, on the contrary, warning me off marriage to Ned with this teasing tone? I wish he had been clearer before we were wedded and bedded and Ned gone away.

Worse still, I find that I am a little queasy in the morning and I cannot eat meat, especially meat with fat, until the evening. It turns my stomach and that is odd, as I have always been hungry at breakfast time, coming to it ravenous after chapel and fasting. My sister Jane used to say that I was gluttonous, and I would laugh and say... but it doesn’t matter now what I used to say, since I will never say it to her again, and now I can only face bread and milk and sometimes not even that. Jo the pug sits on my lap at breakfast and eats most of my portion. I believe that my breasts are warmer and a little tender, too. I don’t know for sure, and still there is no one that I can ask, but I think these are signs that I might be with child. And then what will I do?

Lady Clinton, my lady aunt Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a kinswoman of mine who loved my sister Jane, stops me in the gallery and remarks that I am less merry without my friends the Seymours. She waits as if I should say something in reply. Lady Northampton, who comes behind her, says openly to my face that if I am in love with Ned Seymour, then I would do better to tell the queen and have her order him to make an honest woman out of me. They stand side by side, Elizabeth’s friends, Elizabeth’s confidantes, a pair of harpies, as if they know everything, as if my precious secret is anything like their horrible old flirtations in the reign before this one, in the years before that, long ago when they were young and pretty and tenderhearted.